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Full-Text Articles in Law
Residual Impact: Resentencing Implications Of Johnson's Potential Ruling On Acca's Constitutionality, Leah Litman
Residual Impact: Resentencing Implications Of Johnson's Potential Ruling On Acca's Constitutionality, Leah Litman
Articles
In January 2015, the Supreme Court directed the parties to brief and argue an additional question in Johnson v. United States: “Whether the residual clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), is unconstitutionally vague.” The order represents an unusual move because the defendant had not raised the vagueness issue and the Court issued the order after it had already heard argument on the question raised in the petition for certiorari. Commentators therefore view the order as a signal that the Court will likely invalidate the residual clause. This decision will have been several years …
Did Booker Increase Sentencing Disparity? Why The Evidence Is Unpersuasive, Sonja B. Starr
Did Booker Increase Sentencing Disparity? Why The Evidence Is Unpersuasive, Sonja B. Starr
Articles
The Sentencing Commission’s recent report on the effects of United States v.Booker makes a number of very worri- some claims.The most alarming is that the gap in sen- tences between otherwise similar Black and White men has nearly quadrupled: from 4.5 percent before Booker, to 15 percent after it, to 19.5 percent after United States v. Kimbrough and United States v.Gall. 1 The Commission further claims that interjudge disparity has increased in two-thirds of the federal districts, and that interdistrict variation has also increased.2 If its findings were accurate, and if these changes could be causally attributed to Booker and …
Juvenile Life Without Parole: Unconstitutional In Michigan?, Kimberly A. Thomas
Juvenile Life Without Parole: Unconstitutional In Michigan?, Kimberly A. Thomas
Articles
Last term, in Graham v Florida,1 the United States Supreme Court found unconstitutional the sentence of life without parole for a juvenile who committed a non-homicide offense. This attention to the sentencing of juvenile offenders is a continuation of the Court's decision in Roper v Simmons,2 in which the Court held that juvenile offenders could not constitutionally receive the death penalty. This scrutiny should be a signal to Michigan to examine its own jurisprudence on juveniles receiving sentences of life without parole. Michigan has the second-highest number of persons serving sentences of life without parole for offenses committed when they …
Sentencing: Where Case Theory And The Client Meet, Kimberly A. Thomas
Sentencing: Where Case Theory And The Client Meet, Kimberly A. Thomas
Articles
Criminal sentencing hearings provide unique opportunities for teaching and learning case theory. These hearings allow attorneys to develop a case theory in a context that both permits understanding of the concept and, at the same time, provides a window into the difficulties case theory can pose. Some features of sentencing hearings, such as relaxed rules of evidence and stock sentencing stories, provide a manageable application of case theory practice. Other features of sentencing hearings, such as the defendant's allocution, require an attorney to contend with competing "case theories," and as a result, to face the ethical and counseling challenge of …
Beyond Mitigation: Towards A Theory Of Allocution, Kimberly A. Thomas
Beyond Mitigation: Towards A Theory Of Allocution, Kimberly A. Thomas
Articles
THE COURT: I don't think I have time to listen .... I am not going to reexamine your guilt or innocence here. That is not the purpose of a sentence.. THE DEFENDANT: I did not have the chance to tell you .... THE DEFENDANT: But, your Honor, listen to me-1 Should the court hear this defendant? Is the story of innocence relevant at allocution-the defendant's opportunity to speak on his or her own behalf at the sentencing hearing prior to the imposition of sentence? Or, is the purpose of allocution something different, as the judge suggests? The answers depend on …
Improving Criminal Jury Decision Making After The Blakely Revolution, J. J. Prescott, Sonja B. Starr
Improving Criminal Jury Decision Making After The Blakely Revolution, J. J. Prescott, Sonja B. Starr
Articles
The shift in sentencing fact-finding responsibility triggered in many states by Blakely v. Washington may dramatically change the complexity and type of questions that juries will be required to answer. Among the most important challenges confronting legislatures now debating the future of their sentencing regimes is whether juries are prepared to handle this new responsibility effectively - and, if not, what can be done about it. Yet neither scholars addressing the impact of Blakely nor advocates of jury reform have seriously explored these questions. Nonetheless, a number of limitations on juror decision making seriously threaten the accuracy of verdicts in …
Lost Lives: Miscarriages Of Justice In Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross
Lost Lives: Miscarriages Of Justice In Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
In case after case, erroneous conviction for capital murder has been proven. I contend that these are not disconnected accidents, but systematic consequences of the nature of homicice prosecution in the general and capital prosecution in particular - that in this respect, as in others, death distorts and undermines the course of the law.
Lost Lives: Miscarriages Of Justice In Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross
Lost Lives: Miscarriages Of Justice In Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
One of the longstanding complaints against the death penalty is that it "distort[s] the course of the criminal law."' Capital prosecutions are expensive and complicated; they draw sensational attention from the press; they are litigated-before, during, and after trial-at greater length and depth than other felonies; they generate more intense emotions, for and against; they last longer and live in memory. There is no dispute about these effects, only about their significance. To opponents of the death penalty, they range from minor to severe faults; to proponents, from tolerable costs to major virtues. ntil recently, however, the conviction of innocent …
The Romance Of Revenge: An Alternative History Of Jeffrey Dahmer's Trial, Samuel R. Gross
The Romance Of Revenge: An Alternative History Of Jeffrey Dahmer's Trial, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
On Feb. 17, 1992, Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to fifteen consecutive terms of life imprisonment for killing and dismembering fifteen young men and boys. Dahmer had been arrested six months earlier, on July 22, 1991. On Jan. 13 he pled guilty to the fifteen murder counts against him, leaving open only the issue of his sanity. Jury selection began two weeks later, and the trial proper started on Jan. 30. The jury heard two weeks of horrifying testimony about murder, mutilation and necrophilia; they deliberated for five hours before finding that Dahmer was sane when he committed thos crimes. After …
The Romance Of Revenge: Capital Punishment In America, Samuel R. Gross
The Romance Of Revenge: Capital Punishment In America, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
On February 17, 1992, Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to 15 consecutive terms of life imprisonment for killing and dismembering 15 young men and boys (Associated Press 1992a). Dahmer had been arrested six months earlier, on July 22, 1991. On January 13 he pled guilty to the fifteen murder counts against him, leaving open only the issue of his sanity. Jury selection began two weeks later, and the trial proper started on January 30. The jury heard two weeks of testimony about murder, mutilation and necrophilia; they deliberated for 5 hours before finding that Dahmer was sane when he committed these …
Sentencing, The Dilemma Of Discretion, Jerold H. Israel
Sentencing, The Dilemma Of Discretion, Jerold H. Israel
Book Chapters
[The following excerpts are taken from Professor Jerold Israel's revision of the late Hazel B. Kerper's Introduction to the Criminal Justice System ( West Publishing Co. 1979), with permission of the author and publisher. Footnotes have been omitted.] As we have seen, judges usually have substantial discretion in sentencing. Most states give them considerable leeway in choosing between probation and imprisonment, in setting the term of imprisonment under either an indeterminate or determinate sentencing structure, in deciding whether a young offender will be given the special benefits of a youthful offender statute, and in determining whether to impose consecutive or …